During the past ten years, the scope of Alzheimer's disease research has expanded dramatically. This growth has been due in large part to the development of new basic research tools that have enable a much wider range of laboratory experiments to be performed. The mission of our ADRC Core facilities is to provide high quality resources to a broad range of Alzheimer's researchers, and through this activity to encourage and support Alzheimer's disease research throughout the biomedical community. The Laboratory Services has been established to meet a growing demand from our researchers for access to biological resources that are otherwise difficult for them to obtain, in particular, the animal models that are so rapidly advancing our field. To achieve this end, the following goals have been set for this Core. to maintain breeding stock for local investigators of animal models of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. to provide a facility in which these models can be aged under pathogen-free microisolator conditions to monitor and quality assure the genotype and genetic background of the animals and to assist affiliated researchers in strategies for experiments to maintain a selection of aged wild-type animals of the most commonly used wild-type strains for use by all members of the local Alzheimer's research community. to promote the use of animal models as a tool of discovery The structure for this facility has been designed in such a way as to provide for both consistency and flexibility. The goal is service and the provision of resources that are truly needed by our local researchers. The realization of this plan should significantly improve the climate for Alzheimer's research.